Glossary
from Stern, Robert W. Changing India: Bourgeois Revolution on the Subcontinent. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

ahimsa       Literally, non-violence. A concept common to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism; and given modern currency by Mahatma Gandhi.

 Ashraf        Literally, nobility. North Indian Muslims of high social status.

Ayodhya      A temple town in Uttar Pradesh. The site of the Babri  Masjid-Ram Janmabhumi Mandir imbroglio, and used as a shorthand name for it.

babu          Literally, father. A title for "white collar" bourgeois, in general, and Bengali bhadralok in particular. May be used descriptively or disdainfully.

baniya        A businessperson, or a member of a caste whose traditional occupation is business. May be used descriptively or disdainfully.

bhadralok     Literally, gentlefolk; specifically, members of those Bengali upper castes that cultivate the skills of literacy and numeracy and are inclined to educated employment.

bhakti        Hindu devotionalism; a medieval Hindu devotionalist movement.

Bharat       The Indian name for India: appears on currency, stamps, etc. in devanagari script. It may be used to describe rural India or used with folkish overtones.

 bhujan        Common people, ordinary folks.

 Bollywood    The Indian film industry, particularly the Hindi-language filmi duniya (film world) of Mumbai (Bombay).

Centre        India's national government.

crore          Ten million. A crorepati is a millionaire.

Dalit         Literally, the oppressed; the preferred name nowadays for groups that were referred to in the past as scheduled castes, untouchables, Harijans, ex-untouchables.

dar al-lslam   A place ruled according to the sacred laws of Islam. Its opposite is dar al-harb: the place of war and infidelity.

deshi          Of the countryside, local, Indian provincial. Also, dehati.

dhama        A traditional form of protest in which the aggrieved through self-inflicted punishment attempts to shame his or her antagonist into a negotiated settlement of their conflict.

Dilli durbar    The regime in Delhi.

durbar        The regime in a former princely state, the court. Also a public audience or reception.

garibi hatao   Literally, abolish poverty! A slogan, and no more than that, of prime minister Indira Gandhi.

gotra          An exogamous division of a caste, a clan.

gaddi         The head of government, "the throne." Literally, the cushion.

Hindutva      Literally, Hindu-ness; specifically, an ideological and programmatic commitment to "Hindu nationalism," although what exactly this would mean is unclear.

jati            Literally, breed; the village-based, face-to-face unit of caste. A quasi jati is a social group of non-Hindus with yari-like traits.

jajmani system An asymmetric, "traditional," heritable and ritualized relationship, now largely vestigial, of goods-for-services exchange between a village jajman (patron) and his kamin (literally, lesser; client).

karkhana      A workshop, small factory.

Khilafat Movement    Between 1920 and 1922, a popular, anti-British Muslim movement in support of the Ottoman khalifah, and to which Mahatma Gandhi attached his Non-Cooperation Movement.

Maharaja     A Hindu client prince of the British Indian Empire. The Muslim equivalent is Nawab.

mandal       From the Second Backward Classes [Mandal] Commission Report of 1980. Used as shorthand for OBC-centered, caste politics, vb. mandalize-

mandir        Literally, temple. From the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi Mandir imbroglio and used as shorthand tor Hindutva- centered politics.

mantra        A Hindu sacred formula, hymn, incantation; may be used disparagingly: a meaningless incantation.

Manuvad     Literally, Manu-ism: an ideological commitment to Brahminical Hinduism. The reference is the Code of Manu, which was probably written some time between 100-300 CE and designed to give divine sanction to a caste hierarchy in which Brahmins were on top.

masala.        A mixture.

masjid        Mosque.

mullah        A Muslim cleric-cum-legist. Also, alim (sing.) 'ulama (pi.).

Naxalite       Revolutionary communist militias, named for their early base of operations in the West Bengal countryside.

OBC         Other Backward Classes. The agglomeration of some thousands of castes which the Mandal Commission deemed to be "backward" and therefore entitled to reserved positions in central government employment and university enrollment.        

panchayat     A customary council, of villagers or jati fellows, headed by a sarpancha. 

panchayati raj A statutory system of rural self-government instituted by Congress state governments in the late 1950s, and afterwards.     

pariwar       Family. See sangh pariwar.

purdah       Literally, curtain; the seclusion of Hindu or Muslim women, either in their homes or in public by costumes of conventional modesty.

Quaid-i-Azam       Great leader, Mohammad Ali Jinnah's title.

raj            Regime, kingdom, realm, rule, state, etc. The Raj refers tothe former British government of India.

sanghathanan     Unity, specifically the unity of Hindus.

sangh pariwar     Literally, the family of organizations; that group of affiliated organizations that are ideologically and programmatically attached to Hindutva. The BJP is ihepariwar's political party.

sarpancha     The head of a panchayat

satyagraha    Literally, truth-insistence; Mahatma Gandhi's name for his dhama-based strategy of non-violent conflict and conflict resolution.

shari'ah       Islamic sacred law.

shastra        A work of Hindu injunctive scripture, i.e., sacred law.

Sikhism       From the sixteenth century in Punjab, a religion largely synthesized from bhakti and Sufism. The Sikh faith is the panth (path) and the community is the khalsa.

Sufism       The Islamic expression of devotionalism and mysticism.